A
Taste of Japan in Guelph at the 2008 Sei do Kai Spring Jodo/ Iaido
Seminar

This
is the eighth year I have attended the Canadian Kendo Federation's
Spring seminar, hosted by Sensei Kim Taylor, head of Sei do Kai.
Usually it falls on my birthday, but this year it ended a few days
before. Since the first year I came I have felt that it was a long
weekend and a few hundred dollars, a birthday present to myself, well
spent, because of the incredible quality of the martial arts
instruction.

There
are generally no less than 6 or 7 visiting Senseis from Japan
instructing in Iaido and Jodo. This year the head of the Japanese
contingent of instructors was once again Namitome Sensei, 8th
Dan Hanshi Jodo and 8th
Dan Iaido. Instructing Jodo with him were two 7th
Dan female Sensei, Etoh Sensei and Otofuji Sensei. At the opening of
the sessions on Friday afternoon, Namitome Sensei told us that he
had planned to retire from Canada. He first came to teach in Canada
in 2000.

Namitome
Sensei in fact had retired from Canada when his knees became painful
several years ago, and we spent a while training with Sensei from
Tokyo, but at the opening session Namitome Sensei told us that last
year he was invited to come to be part of a senior grading panel and
that despite his bad knees he decided to make the trip. He must
still like instructing us, or feel that it is worth his while,
because here he was again, this year, once more enticed by the invite
to be part of a senior grading panel. There were three senior iaido
instructors accompanying Namitome Sensei – Yoshimura Sensei, Kyoshi
8th
Dan iaido and 7th
Dan jodo, who recently graded for and passed his 8th
Dan Grading, Hatakenaka Sensei, a 7th
Dan woman sensei with incredibly clean powerful cuts and Tsubaki
Sensei, 7th
Dan iaido and 7th
dan jodo.

Friday
afternoon is usually a warm up for some of the more senior students.
Not all
the participants are present yet. The jodo sensei focused on koryu, old
style jodo, demonstrating the omote series of kata and pointing out
the difference between each of the koryu kata and their seitei, or
new style standardized equivalents. We practiced … repeating, or
attempting to repeat the movements demonstrated by the sensei. This
method of instruction, like most martial arts training is based on
learning by doing, or repetition, repetition, repetition. There is
no other way to learn kata.

In
the worlds of jodo and iaido a one-inch difference in the placement
of a hand, or a foot, can mean the difference between a pass and a
fail, and the higher up the ladder you go, the less leaway there is
for error. So, when the Sensei come around and correct you, either
by saying ‘no, not like this!’ or simply by shaking their heads
and moving your hand, your sword or bokken, your jo or your hips to
the correct position, it’s a good thing. This is one place where
you welcome what in other circles might be considered negative
attention – someone telling you what you are doing wrong and how to
fix it.

The
first year I came to the seminar, I was almost a complete novice of
iaido, and when the Japanese Sensei said “No, not like this!”,
and showed me what to do, often I could not tell the difference
between what they were showing me and what I had done. Such is the
way of the untrained mind. You cannot see what you cannot see, or
maybe you don’t know what you are looking for. As I advanced in iaido
and now jodo my mistakes and the corrections in positioning and
posture have become apparent even to me, not just to the visiting
Sensei.

Getting
back to Friday’s opening sessions, the 2 hours went by very
quickly. For some of us nidans and sandans, who are relatively new
to koryu, the focus was on learning the sequence of the moves for
each of the katas. The more senior yondans, and godans who
clearly already knew the patterns, focused their attention on the more
minor intricate details.

When
I first started training in iaido and later jodo I used to wonder how
someone could do the same thing over and over again for the years and
years, even decades, that it takes to go from no dan to 8th
Dan and holding. Didn’t they get bored? What could they possibly
learn doing the same things again and again? … Well, now that I
have 8 years of iaido and jodo training under my belt, a dan in iaido
and just graded for and passed my 3rd
dan in jodo, I know a little more about the answer to those questions
then I did before.

Jodo
and Iaido training, like many other martial arts, is really the
search for perfection, which ultimately is unattainable. One can get
closer and closer but never ever actually get there, but the way, as
Miyamoto Musashi, the famous Japanese swordsman said, is in the
training…
and every year after the seminar, I am always amazed at how much my
posture, positioning and technique has improved over the short but
intense three and a half day weekend seminar.

There
is something to be said about total immersion, immersion in the art
with a dedicated group of like-minded people who are intent on
learning and improving their art, their technique. There is
something to be said for learning from a group of highly ranked
instructors and repeating the same basic drills and the same katas
over and over and over again. There is something to be said about
living, eating and breathing your art for several days. It is a
doorway to improvement. To use the words of my traditional medicine
teacher, "It allows you to take a step up." Following the jodo
session on Friday there was an instructional iai class, which my Sensei
and other dojo leaders attended, that concentrated on metsuke, or gaze,
one of the hallmarks of good iaido, and merihari,
or telling the story/showing the story of the kata.

Saturday
morning welcomed about 140 participants to the West Gym of the
University of Guelph, a large, well-lit gym with incredibly high
ceilings that would serve as the seminar's main home for the entire
weekend. This location, along with another smaller gym and a couple
of seminar studios, were the ideal spaces for the various sessions. The
Saturday morning seminar always begins with a formal welcome to
Namitome and the other visiting senseis by Sensei Kim Taylor, the
seminar’s main organizer, as well as a formal greeting to the
students from Namitome Sensei. After the mokuso, the official bow, we
lined up according to our dojos. The groups spread from one end of
the gym to the other. There were 10 students in the line from our
dojo, a good number, but a few of the dojo line ups had double that.
People had come from as far away as British Columbia, from Quebec,
New York city, Detriot, Ottawa, Pickering, Toronto, all across
Ontario, in fact, from Nova Scotia and the list went on. The quality
of the instruction makes this one of the world’s star iaido/jodo
attractions, and the word is out!

We
split into our respective arts. To me, the numbers seemed evenly split
between the jodo group and the iaido students. In the past, being
the consummate multi-disciplinary martial artist who wants to do it
all, I split my time between jodo and iaido, spending time in some of
each of the sessions. It is incredible that there is leeway for that
at the seminar. These days I am slightly more focused, doing only
the jodo sessions and finding that the entire weekend devoted to one
art really allows me to deepen my learning.

We
started the jodo session with the basic basics – kihon dosa – the
twelve basic moves that constitute the core of jodo. The first visiting
Japanese Sensei I studied with was Nakaima Sensei, one of Namitome
Sensei’s students, who told me that in his dojo, the
students have to study the basics for 2 years before they are allowed
to practice kata. In North America, we are in fast forward mode, so
2 years of basics get condensed into 3 hours of morning practice.

Our
dojo, which includes jodo as part of the kobudo or ancient weapons
program, is like many in North America which do not follow the
Nakaima Sensei 2 years of basic training practice before kata and
throws rank beginners straight into kata with the basics thrown in
for good measure, but definitely not the only focus. It is good to
review the basics with these masters and to note that even those with
more senior belts than I have get corrected from time to time.

In
the afternoon session everyone went through the kata from the bottom
up and once we reached seven and took our break, we split into two
groups, one staying on those kata and the other going on to the
higher kata… By the end of the day I was knackered, my voice
hoarse from kiaiing, my shoulder, which had started the day stiff and
in pain, was sore, but no longer stiff. The constant movement during
the day had somehow eased the pain. An epsoms salts bath and an
early night are the order of the evening.

Usually
the gradings are held on the Sunday morning of the seminar but this
year was different. We got an extra day’s practice before
performing in front of the panel of judges. Sunday morning picked up
where Saturday evening left off – kata, kata, kata. Those grading were
told to stay in the grading group and work on improving the
posture and details of the kata. Those who were not grading got to go
along for the ride all the way to the end of the 12 kata selection.

There were details upon details from the
visiting sensei who each supervised
a different group of students and each went around correcting hand and
foot positions, targeting and body postures, speaking only in
Japanese, to a group of students who, except for a few student
translators, don’t understand very many words of Japanese at all. But
somehow we understand each other. It is the language of devotion to a
common art, a common goal. As the weekend goes on, we seem to
absorb Japanese by osmosis – even when the translator is not there,
the Sensei comes around and explains their corrections in Japanese
using hand movements, demonstrating positions and almost
miraculously, we are communicating, in two different languages. We
are speaking the language of jodo.

The author and her partner being
taught by Namitome sensei

At
the end of the day on Sunday I was again happy with the day's progress.
I had received many corrections from Namitome Sensei, Etoh Sensei
and Otofuji Sensei and still had one more session in the morning to
seal those changes they suggested into my body memory before the
grading. Having moved back and forth, first with instructors from
Fukuoka and then Tokyo and back to Fukuoka, which have slight but
significantly different styles, my body memory sometimes gets
confused about whether to lean forward here or to square the hips up
there.

In
the morning we continued as we had in the last session of the evening,
with the most senior students training koryu with Namitome Sensei and
two other groups of students repeating the grading requirements and a
few more senior kata. The Monday grading started, as always, from the
bottom up. The improvement of the students was impressive, especially
obvious in those who knew very little at the beginning of the seminar
and are grading for 1st
Kyu. The whole grading group seemed well prepared, or so it seemed to
my only just beginning to be trained sandan eye. There were details
that the Sensei had corrected in my kata that my body still had
not completely absorbed despite the morning training session, so I
asked the jodo gods to allow me to remember them for my grading.

Luckily
I am partnering a nidan candidate so I get to do a trial run of most
of my kata directly in front of the panel of 6 judges. That dealt
with the nerves and when my group went up to grade, I could concentrate
on demonstrating what I know. The entire grading passed. A rare
moment indeed! We were told just as we sat down to watch the senior
iaido grading. After lunch we once again started from the bottom up,
this time each group demonstrating the embu, or five kata,
particular to their group. It was a pleasure to get to demonstrate in
front of the whole seminar audience and to watch what others had
been working on all weekend. The demonstrations ended with the jodo
and iaido sensei wowing us with their fine technique.

Then
we were treated to a short lesson in tanjo, a sort of Japanese walking
stick, and I realized once more that the path of a martial artist is
never ending. Here we go again, another new art to master. Tune in
same time next year for more on that story! All in all it was another
incredible seminar. I remain ever grateful to my Sensei for the years
of instruction and training that has allowed me to benefit from this
seminar, to the Japanese Sensei for their patience and attention to
detail and last but not least to Sensei Kim Taylor of Sei do Kai for
yet again pulling off a masterpiece!